October 5, 2011

“The worm is finally turning on the nonsense of blaming the wrong people for what happened in 2008,” said Feingold, whose new group, Progressives United, was formed to counter the Citizens United decision and corporate influence over politics. “The American people are saying, wait, we have the boot of corporations on our necks, and we’re sick of it. This is a significantly coherent message at the beginning of something like this.”

Maybe if old Russ is this clueless as to just whom has their boot on our necks he should just stay retired. He's welcome to hoover up all the dumb liberal cash that fools will part with. But it won't change the tide that is flowing against progressive madness.

If anything is responsible for the collapse in banking and housing that caused all that, it's the idea that debt is not a serious contract and that government should stick it's nose in and give people and banks the idea that it's gonna get forgiven somehow if it goes bad.

I'm doubtful that a three week-old protest comprised of ~1,000 young (and overwhelmingly white!) Manhattanites is really the catalyst for national revolt that Progressives are hoping for. It seems like the Left is clutching at straws after the failure of the Coffee Party, No Labels, F*ck Tea, etc., to offer a liberal answer to the Tea Party. Occupy Wall Street will be just another footnote in the history of Obama's 2012 campaign.

But then, I was highly skeptical in 2009 that the Tea Party would amount to anything. So we'll see.

AdBusters, the Canadian anti-consumerist organization that started the occupation, had promised that “one demand” would soon be revealed. Anonymous, the shadowy web collective, suggested “freedom.” Unions said workers rights. Ron Paul supporters said ending the Fed. A kid in spectacles and Keds demanded more episodes of “Arrested Development.” But Matt said not to expect clear demands soon or, perhaps, ever.

The "forgive debt" mantra will play very well with the under-30 crowd, because they are stuck with high levels of student loan debt with no realistic way to pay it off. That debt is going to be a big drag on household formation and the economy going forward.

Of course, much of this is in government-backed loans, so we will be on the hook if there is a change to the law to allow student loan debt to be discharged in bankruptcy.

A boom cycle went bust. This is the predictable end of an economic cycle. Only has happened throughout human history.

The intervention of the government in the markets substantially ratcheted up the effects of the bust. The Fed, after all, pushed banks to lower requirements for loans. Then everybody jumped in to join the feeding frenzy.

And, the taxpayers were left holding the bag.

Just about everybody's got blood on their hands. The Fed, more than anybody else. The profiteers in the investment banks, the banks and the rating agencies. The folks who used their homes as ATMs. The cowboy loan companies that sprang up at the end of the cycle.

What's the moral of the story? To me, it's that it's mighty dangerous to allow the Fed to jigger the market, even if you think the reasons for doing so are laudable.

It all started for what everybody thought was the very laudable goal of extending home ownership to a larger percentage of minorities.

How do we have the "boots of corporations at our necks"? It's an honest question; I really have no idea what corporations are doing to me, personally, or anyone I know, that are hurtful or coercive.

Pretty much all of my experiences with corporations have been them providing a good or service to me, and me paying them, after having decided for myself whether or not that good or service was worth the money that the corporation was asking. (Or, alternatively, me providing a service to the corporation after having freely decided that the corporation was offering me a just wage for the work that I offered to perform.)

All these dog and pony shows are fine for entertainment but I have more serious a question. Why hasn't our hostess posted anything about gunwalker recently? How will the liberal progressives respond when the One starts issuing pardons to all his dupes at the DoJ?

1000 hippies crying because their parents bought them everything, so the government should to, pales in comparison to hundreds of dead bodies lying in mexican morgues, not count at LEAST 2 here in America. I suspect that number to be higher but we/ll never know and thats whats wrong with the power structure in DC today. The Dems cover the Reps ass when the fire gets hot, and vice versa.

"This is a significantly coherent message at the beginning of something like this.”

It's as if Feingold wants to counter specifically the criticism that demands of of the anarchist-syndicalist council(s) now squatting in the vicinity of Wall Street are indeed incoherent.

Well, Feingold did say the demands were significantly coherent, which is, I suppose, a qualification that implies that the demands may not be completely coherent, but at least significantly so. Rather lame.

1000 hippies crying because their parents bought them everything, so the government should to, pales in comparison to hundreds of dead bodies lying in mexican morgues, not count at LEAST 2 here in America.

It may be changing. AG Holder was caught lying to Congress a day or two ago, and that was far worse than what Scooter Libby was convicted of. He said that he hadn't heard of Fast and Furious until a couple of weeks ago. Then, it turns out there was a memo to him concerning it better than a year ago, and Sen. Grassly talked to him about it in January.

As I indicated earlier, Rep. Issa had been delaying calling for a special prosecutor until he had more evidence, since they are typically USAs, which are political appointees appointed by Obama and cleared by Holder. But, it appears that he cannot delay much longer - the cat is out of the bag, and the high level crime too obvious and blatant now. The DoJ sends people to prison for less than what their boss did before Congress.

Listening to the MSM, various politicians, and celebrities coo over the 'Occupy Wall Street' gangs is very similar to watching them coo over the 'Arab Spring'. Except that the Arab Spring is turning into what it will become and has nothing to do with sweetness and light. Neither does Occupy Wall Street. Marxists, Unionists, and leftists (new and old) are feeling their community. Sooner or later...the anti-Semites will come out (mark my work here- if International Marxists are running this thing, the anti-semitisim will show itself). Also, mark my word- if this goes on longer, and the Marxists/Unionists take over fully, it'll turn ugly.

The Tea Party is a grass roots liberty movement. Occupy Wall Street is an organized statist movement. The two could not be more different. One is civilized, looking to rebuild. The other is anarchistic, looking to tear down.

And there's this: The size of the Tea Party is forever being underestimated, and the number of full-on statists in this country is forever being over-estimated. I have no science to prove it, but I'd bet 500 Italian Lira on it.

SO, does that mean the Tea Party isn't extremist/racist/terrorist/democracy-hijackers? Or does that mean OWS will show us what real extremists look like, thus proving the previous portrayal of the Tea Party was erroneous?

American leftists are all bent out of shape about corporations. American people aren't. The great meme of the left, with all its mutative power to dial up outrage about everything, leaves most Americans cold.

What people do object to is crony capitalism and corruption. It should be easy for a political candidate to work that message. Which is what Sarah Palin has been doing.

On a long enough timeline, the progressive leftist economic experiment has failed every time it's been tried. This time in our nations history is no exception. There always comes a tipping point where the givers can't (or or won't) keep up with the takers. All the temper tantrums in the world by the takers won't change that.

hahah all these Althouse commentors now see what the tea party has looked like for the rest of us. Some of these comments are EXACTLY like what daily cos etc has been saying about the tea part. no-one ever learns

SO, does that mean the Tea Party isn't extremist/racist/terrorist/democracy-hijackers? Or does that mean OWS will show us what real extremists look like, thus proving the previous portrayal of the Tea Party was erroneous?

Joanna, you took the words right out of my mouth. Either way it's a TP publicity win: the narrative is wrong or the OWS is admitting defeat and adopting the supposed TP tactics.

people are mad because the big money guys got bailed out.the big money guys took their bonus payments anyway even though it is taxpayer moneythe GOP bends over an spreads whenever a big money guy says toand the middle class is left with the cleanup

nawww I see no reason for people to march in the streets. none at all. seems all is a-o'k. mission go to launch. all's fine with the world. class warfare...hrmmmmph.

Was awake at 4:00 and on facebook and looking at "Occupy" a little more closely. Decided to put "occupy" in the fb search and waddyaknow - there's an Occupy Anchorage and they're having a little sign holding solidarity gathering in the ANC town square this afternoon at 5. Someone posted some pictures of the organizational mtg. - not exactly the middle-America types that their propaganda would assert.

Was telling the 16 y.o. H.S. senior as I was bringing her to her Western Civ. class at the Univ. this a.m. "Oh! We should go! I'll bring my 'protest' signs."

She found this website http://www.xkcd.com/470/ A webcomic of romance,sarcasm, math, and language. The cartoon for the day yest. was titled The End is Not for a While.It showed two stick figures with signs. The heading was: I get in trouble for showing up contented at protests. The signs read "Things Are Pretty Okay!" and "Anyone for Scrabble Later?"

Kucinich (on Cavuto right now): "If you check the record, I wasn't one of those who disrespected the Tea Party... That's about Tea, this [OWS] is about bread... I think the real story here is that we're right on the threshold of a convergence [of extreme L/R]... I'm here occupying Congress..."

So I just went to get lunch at a pizza takeout place and they had msnbc on with no volume. The current segment title was 'GOP Establishment versus the Tea Party.' Great, I thought. They're furiously deflecting attention from Obama and trying to incite infighting in the GOP. Just in time for the election season! (This whole GOP v. TP has David Axelrod's fingerprints all over it.)

Before you think this story takes a darker turn, they did have conservative commentator SE Cupp on and she looked absolutely smoking. Totally turned it around right there. And I thought absolutely nothing good could come of watching msnbc. Happily proven wrong today.

Feingold is handing out the adult version of the “participation trophies” for kids merely showing up on a team, rather than for exemplary skill or hard work or sportsmanship.

Never mind that “Occupy Wall Street” protestors are incoherent and simple-minded; let us praise them for the authenticity of their feelings. But see, this isn’t a kiddies’ game. These protestors are adult citizens of a democracy, demanding changes that affect us all.

Not only are their policy prescriptions (socialism! anarchy!) for the issues at hand worthy of criticism, but more broadly to praise on such low expectations is to infantilize the American electorate. The soft bigotry is writ large.

people are mad because the big money guys got bailed out.the big money guys took their bonus payments anyway even though it is taxpayer moneythe GOP bends over an spreads whenever a big money guy says toand the middle class is left with the cleanup

Poor HD, clueless as always.

He just described the Democrat, not Republican, Party of the last 20 years.

Slobbering Barney and the Friend of Angelo (not to mention his handmaiden, Barry) weren't from the Party founded by Abe Lincoln.

Russ Feingold and those who participate in Occupy Wall Street are free to go ahead and start a business, any business, they'd like, based on the philosophies they hold dear. Nothing is stopping them from doing so.

If they are right in their beliefs, their businesses will be resoundingly appealing to the public. And the profits can be justly and equitably shared.

So go ahead Russ, start your own business. Got stones enough to do it? Or do your really not want to work that hard, but just confiscate the work product of others?

I'll take Occupy Wall Street seriously when they show me that they actually understand what went on in the past decade. I'll know they get it when they form Occupy Barney Frank's Front Lawn.

Seriously, how can I hear the ABC news report about Fast & Furious with all of this 'protest' stuff going on. What's that? It's not on ABC news? How can that be??....They're showing a rock in Texas instead? really?

I recently purchased a new motor ($100) for my 50 year old range hood fan. First one the jack-booted thugs sent me didn't work. You know what the brown shirts did next? They sent me a new one, and didn't require me to send the old one back. Just trying to skip out on their recycling duties, I bet. The bastards!

And then, to add insult to injury, they sent me an e-mail asking if I was happy with the outcome. The nerve!

Why is the official OWS website in league with lobbying fronts for the Wall Street-backed Obama White House?

Paul Joseph WatsonInfowars.comWednesday, October 5, 2011

Fears expressed by some that the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ movement is being hijacked by the Democratic Party establishment have intensified after the official OWS website announced that it “stands in solidarity” with MoveOn.org, a lobbying group for the Wall Street-backed Obama administration.

Went down to Wall St today to have a look. I am not sure they are as organized as the older conservative tea party members were when the tp got started. Those people had jobs and wore collared shirts and were pretty much squares who had made some money and didnt want it pissed away by the Govt.

The people (i mean "folks" of course) down on Wall Street were, how should i put this, unkempt and disorganized and appeared to be incoherent. I have been on the periphery of two tea party assemblies and these Wall Street people (i mean " folks" of course) are nothing like the well dressed articulate tea partiers. Maybe i was at the wrong encampment but i think not.

J, yes. The better dressed with firmer handshakes do win. The crowd downtown would be losers between you and me. I think in a month they are gone with the cold wind. I am often wrong but never in doubt.

What the hippie liberals don't understand is that corporations are just as good as the Soviet communists that they take after. Better, in fact. If only they understood how awesome and alike these two groups really are!!!

Lyssa (The Lovely Redhead) makes a spectacular point. See, she actually has the free choice to vote, with her dollars, for the perpetuation of a corporation's power. So too, elections in the Soviet Union allowed individual people to freely voice their preference to further the communist party (if they so chose).

It didn't matter that less powerful companies, entities, individuals or political parties were suppressed. IT JUST DOESN'T MATTER!

Now, some of these "big city" hippies might protest the fact that American corporations get extra special privileges, like the ability to whittle down their tax obligation to practically nothing.

Well, obviously, that's what happens when you're entitled to the extra special prestige that a big corporation is granted. They, like the communist party, get to tell the government what to do. And as with the Soviet communist party, their power can ONLY be a GOOD thing, and so it should be enriched, over and above the power of everyone else and everything else. BECAUSE THAT'S THE AMERICAN WAY.

We conservatives know that's how things are, that's the way things always were (or at least since the Dutch East India Company of 1602), and hence, THAT'S THE WAY IT SHOULD ALWAYS BE!!!

Slowly but surely, fellow cons, we will incorporate these non-robotic leftists into our borg-mold.

If government is a name for things we do together, corporation is name for things we do together voluntarily, as Iowahawk put it.

I don't know (or care) who "Iowahawk" is. But I do know that when the government is owned and employed by the corporation, and not the vote, the corporation IS the government. It is involuntary collectivism by default, to correct your construction.

Your first paragraph is insubstantial boilerplate.

The second and third lines might mean something, (heck, they might even apply to Walmart), but an example of how this is the case would be even better.

Corporations use propaganda like anyone else. There has been a push in the "corporate culture" lately to lend a hand in the obligation society has to train people to be productive. But outsourcing that completely to the private sector means that it has become selective, uncommon, overvalued and less useful to an employee who expects to change jobs or even careers many times over the course of their life than it is to the damn company.

X trades with Y when what X has something he values less than Y does, and Y has something he values less than X does.

It's a disagreement about value.

They trade, and both X and Y come out with a profit, owing entirely to their disagreement.

Add that profit up over all voluntary trades in the nation, and the nation's standard of living rises by that amount.

That's where wealth comes from.

Voluntary means both sides profit, or else the trade does not happen.

The worker has labor, the corporation has money, and they disagree about their relative values. The worker wants the money more than the labor, and the corporation wants the labor more than the money.

This is finding a way to make the worker productive. Businesses depend on it, or they go out of business.

Forgotten is that the worker also is coming out ahead.

If you make the workers more expensive to employ, you lose the least productive workers, and the more productive ones become less productive. The standard of living of the nation falls as voluntary mutually profitable trades decline in possibility.

This is called a government wedge; it eats up a certain amount of the vital disagreement over value, so that no trade is possible where one was possible before.

Sure Seven Minutes. Just as soon as you tell us about how you became an expert on all the methods you use to snort your cocaine.

I couldn't care less about some obscure lifelong appointee of the government. Let a coke-head like Seven Menudos pretend otherwise.

Rivulets of white powder, mixed with snot and blood are dribbling down his upper lip. With a spectacle like that on his otherwise usually masked face, of course he would like nothing better than to divert attention elsewhere.

Look, over there! It's an obscure government appointee! Don't focus on the mass protests and the failure of Seven Medusa's ideology! Look elsewhere!!!

Ritmo -- I happily admit to having tried cocaine. It's a fun drug. I've tried many other drugs as well. I am happy to talk about drugs and drug use.

The difference here is that you looked like a complete and total idiot when you tried to discuss the Supreme Court -- something you obviously knew and nothing about. That's why you slunk away from here. Too bad you are back. It's funny, though, or it will be as soon as you start blabbing like a drooling idiot again about things you know nothing about.

"No economics text encourages moral hazard by removing the obligation one party (government) has to the other party (the electorate) and replacing that with a different and competing obligation, an obligation solely to those who finance its campaigns..."

...than anyone I can think of.

It's because he's desperate. Condescending and silly. But desperate and desperately out-of-touch.

He might as well live in a city with the protesters. Ironic that he doesn't. He's certainly got the anti-possessions creds.

I've tried many other drugs as well. I am happy to talk about drugs and drug use.

Good for you. Nice thing to have a statute of limitations and selective enforcement on your side. And if you had morals and integrity on your side, you'd probably do something about those who don't have the former protections that you enjoy.

Not as hilarious as a cocaine-snorting, narcissistic jerk-off, like Seven Midgets.

Maybe the cocaine is getting in the way of your ability to be serious. Try focusing on something that will induce that Seven Mentos' sense of rage, that you're so well known for. More cocaine might help.

Think back to the sad time in your childhood when your ADD made you feel like the easily distracted dummy that you know yourself to be, rather than the clever little four-year old that you're reverting to now.

Machos can't help his vain and obsessive thoughts at a moment like this. It helps him forget about the fact that he's losing the country. He said he'd talk about his cocaine use, but obviously that was a ruse - his own feeble effort to divert attention from what is clearly a bigger problem for him.

Menudos, how is your political and intellectual frustration affecting your cocaine habits? Did you switch from whoring your mother out to whoring your wife out?

Bruce: But, it appears that he cannot delay much longer - the cat is out of the bag, and the high level crime too obvious and blatant now. The DoJ sends people to prison for less than what their boss did before Congress.

Don't you remember the warnings from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? "Don't try these tricks at home, we're professionals." Holder is a professional liar and scumbag. Whereas you and me could probably be sent to prison for a long time, courtesy a talented prosecutor, just for telling the truth.

What irks me is these Wall Street con artists created poison paper, knew it was poison, and sold it as low risk equities backed by their stooges in the rating agencies...and not one criminal charge has emerged..with full connivance of Elites in both the Republican and Democrat Parties.

People are pissed. Really pissed at the NYC Bankers and Wall Streeters. Who can blame them, even some clueless angry youth gathering for protests about their destroyed futures??

News a couple days ago was that Goldman Sachs helped precipitate the Greek debt crisis by involvement in hiding Greek, Portuguese, and Irish debt in offshore entities.

It's something like after 9/11. The Elites also collaborated on that one to ensure not a single FBI, FAA, CIA, or Justice Dept lawyer like Jamie Gorelick were fired, reprimanded...You knew the "Fix" was in when they appointed Gorelick herself to do the CYA on the 9/11 Commission.

C4, where did all that poison paper come from? Oh yes, the Community Re-investment Act, where banks were forced to loan to clients who didn't have financial resources. Give those bankers credit for passing the hot potato along. Did you expect them to sit on that bad paper?

I recall on bank which was sued for not making minority loans. Their explanation was that the minorities lived in an area the bank usually didn't market to. Ah ha! They just admitted their guilt.

Really pissed at the NYC Bankers and Wall StreetersYeah, they loaned people money at a lower interest rate than their credit warranted, so they could try to make big money in a rising real estate market. It was the People's own greed that fueled the bubble. Wall Street merely gave their demands wings.

7, please, you are a senior person, you are trying to use forms of "drivel" not "dribble." I know we differ on Palin but trust me on this, I mean well.

Reritmo, in Malcolm X's disgusting phrase, "Throw a rock into a pack of dogs and the one that yelps the loudest is the one you hit." You beclown yourself. Why not take the hit like a man, give 7M his "Touché," and move on?

BTW Reritmo I think yr angle on the coke thing, should you plan on fucking that chicken right into the ground, is the limp-dick aspect.

Nothing as good as coke stories, never had any, but I was taking a stimulant once, legally, and doc kept upping my dose. Went to a strip bar and...omitting the good part of this story, I was placed at a serious, ahistoric disadvantage.

Told doc about this revolting development - that the gun wouldn't cock - and moron says "It usually has the opposite effect." Well then give my Rx to Mr Usual, and you can bill him too. I've had problems in my life, but kayn aynhoreh, getting hard as an iron bar has never been one of them. As Sasha could tell you...ahh...

Needless to say I dropped the stuff and The Bad Thing never happened again. So I'm liable to credit Denis Leary, and avoid the marching powder or anything like it, barring strict necessity. And to be very interested in, not to say skeptical of, anyone who says that didn't happen to him. Then again that was a medical opinion so what do I know?

I wouldn't want to pass up the opportunity to give free, useful(!) medical advice, but honestly don't keep up much with that stuff. But I know enough to associate those who do with Len Bias, Charlie Sheen, and Scarface. (And perhaps, as we now learn, the Driller from Wasilla). Ah, the people enticed by the illicit drug of choice of the shallow Reagan era.

My congratulations that you've lived to tell the tale of your experiences, both mental and penile, intact - an experience that apparently eludes Mr Muchachos.

Be glad you did.

You need not fear my armaments. I only responded as I did out of my morbid amusement with Muchachos' obsessive insult machine. Watching his fixation with the same topic, over and over again, was like witnessing a compulsive masturbator with the aforementioned erectile affliction. What a sad thing to lack both control of the organ and the ability to leave it alone.

Your restraint and introspection therefore earn some respect, in my book - and leave us free to talk about substances and experiences infinitely more interesting than whatever hookum Shallow Marge up above has snorted. It's one thing to experience, another thing to inhale.

I will put my pen down. Another line in this comment and Muchassholes might be tempted to snort it.

What a contrast between Steve Jobs and Seven Dwarves Machos. If either one of those two should guide the discussion you just attempted, it's the former.

Glad to see you too, TG. The pleasure of your presence makes it much easier to ignore Mr Ski Mask "--No, it's not REALLY a ski mask!" Not that it was all that hard to begin with.

The lack of features on that blue facial Isotoner make it easy to imagine her as 1) the object of a game of Whac-a-mole, 2) A mutant turtle head, pre-forcible retraction, 3) a combination of the other 2, with maybe a guillotine or a scimitar, a snuff film, and a (literal?) face-off with the villain from Friday the 13th. And the villain gets to win, of course. As always.

The guillotine would be an especially timely touch, given the protests currently occurring in real cities and Muchicken's elitism.

The insanity of the Occupy Wall Street movement - the Big Lie it represents, the fatuousness of the protesters themselves, their lack of coherence, and more (much more!) - should not lead us to fail to take it seriously. Mock it, ridicule it continuously, point up its fatuousness, but don't think it's trivial. It's being heavily promoted by the media, it's well-organized behind the scenes with support of the unions and the socialist/Marxist left as well as the administration.

This is a serious movement in the sense that the people who have put this together want to create an image of violence (ala Greece - think back to the Frances Fox Pliven speech a year or so ago) and chaos to scare people into supporting Obama.

This can be diffused, but it requires as great care in opposing it as that with which it has been manufactured. Do not mistake the useless useful idiots on the street for what this movement really represents.